Jewish singles in Seattle ready to try SpeedDating

SEATTLE - If we can have the one-minute manager, why not the seven-minute date?

Welcome to SpeedDating, where single Jewish participants meet in a cafe or restaurant and "date" seven people for seven minutes each in round-robin fashion.

Could there be a more perfect concept for these rush-rush, "I work 70 hours a week, where and when could I possibly meet people" times?

Debuting in Seattle on Oct. 4, the phenomenon has already been successful in Los Angeles, New York and other cities where hundreds of people sign up to SpeedDate.

"We need this sort of thing now," said Rabbi Chaim Levine, who, along with his wife, Techiya, is coordinating SpeedDating in Seattle. "In the past, there's been a much greater sense of community where people take care of each other. Today, you're lucky if you make eye contact with your neighbors. SpeedDating is an opportunity for people to meet not only their potential spouse but also to reconnect with the Jewish community."

That chance to reconnect touches on another hallmark of our times: using attention-grabbing concepts, such as SpeedDating, to address deeper issues - in this case, the perpetuation of the Jewish people.

SpeedDating began last year in Los Angeles, after Rabbi Yaakov Deyo of Aish HaTorah, an international Jewish educational-outreach network, organized a brainstorming session on how to create a program that would promote Jewish marriage.

"It's an issue that's paramount to the minds of most Jewish organizations," said Danny Moskowitz, director of national licensees for SpeedDating. "It's a top issue in terms of Jewish continuity."

The 1990 National Jewish Population Study showed that 52 percent of American Jews were marrying non-Jews. (A new study is under way to see if that rate has changed.)

"It's a problem and a triumph simultaneously," said Sam Freedman, author of the book "Jew vs. Jew: The Struggle for the Soul of American Jewry." "On the one hand, interfaith marriages are a sign of acceptance, literally a love on the part of non-Jewish Americans for Jewish Americans. That's one thing Jewish people have hoped for, prayed for, dreamt of, during thousands of years of persecution in countries that never fully accepted them. On the other hand, it's definitely something that also erodes Jewish continuity."

One big obstacle is that many young Jewish people aren't attending synagogue or other Jewish organizations, so there's no natural community or place for them to meet each other, Moskowitz said.

"SpeedDating gives them an interesting way to meet people who happen to be Jewish, which is in the back of their minds for most Jewish kids, if not their mothers," he said.

The idea was to hold SpeedDating events in popular restaurants and coffeehouses rather than synagogues or Jewish community centers, "in trendy places where the participants would go anyway," Moskowitz said.

It works like this: A coordinator starts the session either by ringing a bell or yelling something like: "Get ready! Get set! Date!" The men and women, facing each other across individual tables, have seven minutes to converse before time is up and the men have to get up and move to another table. After each conversation, participants write down whether they'd like to see their "date" again. If both a man and a woman decide they want to meet again, SpeedDating gives the couple each other's phone numbers, urging the man to call the woman first.

Participants pay $20. The events are organized by 10-year age groups. In Seattle, those ages 30 to 40 meet Oct. 4; those ages 22 to 32 meet Oct. 25.

SpeedDating rapidly spread from Los Angeles to at least 15 other cities and five countries, including England and Australia. About 7,000 people have participated, SpeedDating officials estimate. In New York, where SpeedDating runs three times a week now, about 3,500 people have gone through. In L.A., it runs twice a week.

In Boston, more than 600 people responded when a SpeedDating event was announced there. In Seattle, dozens of people have already expressed interest. About 30 percent of the participants return.

Nationally, SpeedDating draws those ages 20 to 60, with the average age in the low- to mid-30s. For those under 35, there's a higher ratio of men to women; for those 35 to 40, an even gender mix; and in the over-40 group, a much higher ratio of women to men. About 50 percent of participants indicate they want a second date with people they've met at SpeedDating. Several serious relationships have resulted, at least three marriages and about a half-dozen engagements.

Part of the appeal of SpeedDating is certainly its speed. "People are very busy and want to meet each other in a short amount of time," Moskowitz said. "This eliminates the need for the three-hour nightmare blind date. When it's 'no,' you know in less than seven minutes."

Moskowitz also insists it's a less pressured environment than, say, a club or bar where the conversation tends to be superficial and the pressure is on to get each other's phone numbers.

With SpeedDating, "you just use those seven minutes to have casual conversation," he said. "During that time, you're just figuring out if you want to meet this person again."

The Levines figured it was time Seattle had its own SpeedDating events, not to mention other forms of matchmaking for young Jewish singles.

The Jewish community in greater Seattle hovers around 40,000, Rabbi Levine said, and that number is probably getting higher as the high-tech boom attracts single, young professionals.

"I find a lot of expat New Yorkers here, but they miss the sense of community that they have back East," Levine said. "Here, it's much more spread out."

The Levines, who arrived in the city seven weeks ago to establish a branch of the nonprofit Aish HaTorah, plan to remedy that.

In addition to organizing SpeedDating events here, the Levines will host Shabbat dinners at their home. They'll also be organizing a trip to Israel for singles, and Jewish-studies classes and lectures downtown.

Their initial burst of publicity for SpeedDating has already attracted about 50 would-be participants, including Anne, a 26-year-old counselor from Seattle who asked that her full name not be used to protect her privacy.

"I like the fact that this is fast, and you know afterward who definitely wants to see you again," she said. "There's no guessing. It saves me from those dates where I realize I'd be happier watching reruns on television. And I like the fact that you very quickly get to know a lot of people. It saves time."

Plus, Anne said, "The older I get, the more important I find a Jewish background is to me. There's definitely an understanding, a familiarity, with someone who knows your culture, your tradition, your heritage."